The True Beginning

The story of the True Runes

Scramble

The tournament begins with the fights between the humans and the dwarves. The humans take a 4-3 lead with Golan in the final fight. Golan hopes to secure the victory for Uldurag and avoid being banished from the city. As the fight starts Brock backs up to his position at the side of the arena. Fane was on the lookout for anyone after Brock and noticed Samuel from his order working his way down towards where Brock is heading. Fane quickly intercepts him and puts a knife to his throat.

At this point Brock realizes what is happening and quickly heads for his room to grab his weapon. Summer follows. He leaves two guards outside his room and enters with Summer. When he opens up the cabinet that holds his weapon, Mattheus Tanlie jumps out and attacks. Summer jumps in and helps Brock fight.

While this is happening the fight between Golan and Adrik begins. Mare get’s everyone on the human half of the arena cheering as loud as possible using her bardic skills. The boost of energy from the crowd is clearly helping Golan as he appears to take the lead in the fight.

Fane, holding Samuel at knife point, tells Samuel that the order has become corrupt and has starting selling their services as assassins. This calms Samuel a bit and the two argue about the order’s intentions. An unspoken truce is come to as the two slip away in opposite directions with Fane now heading to join Summer and Brock.

As Fane slips away off the arena floor Golan finally takes down Adrik. The crowd goes wild, but Golan appears to ignore them as he and Mare head off to find everyone else.

The battle in Brock’s room wasn’t going well until Fane showed up. At that point Mattheus, being outnumbered, finally fell. He was able to knock Brock unconscious before doing this.

Fane was able to use a potion to heal Brock, but when Mare and Golan showed up he started yelling for the two to find the other assassin. There was some confusion and time was wasted yelling back and forth. Mattheus bled to death during the argument.

Brock, now conscious, tells Fane that he may know why people were after him. He asks a guard to gather the others who left to find the second assassin and a minute later Mare returns leaving only Golan missing. He asks the guards to leave the room and watch for the second assassin.

With the guards gone, Brock slowly raises his arms at his side and then a large pulse of energy is released. A stone rune appears floating in mid air. It’s marked with a simple leaf and appears very old. A few seconds later the group catches a quick glimpse of a Castle. Summer also notices an army of undead below the castle and a robed man high above the group. Everyone then quickly appears back in Brock’s room with a white robed man standing in front of them. Suddenly everyone is teleported out of Brock’s room.

They all reappear in what appears to be a different plane completely white and featureless. The robed man quickly asks ‘Which is it?’, and then examines the rune. ‘Damn… where’d you find this?’ he then asks. No one answers, so he touches the rune. ‘I see’ he says.

The conversation continues and Brock tells the group how he found the rune. Many years ago while still serving the king he was deep in a jungle when he saw some poachers attacking some animals. He’s very against this and killed the poachers, but it was too late for the animals. A short distance away from the bodies he saw a glimpse of something floating between some trees. He grabbed it, and it’s been part of him ever since.

The robed man then introduces himself as Andarian, son of Enthules. He tells them that he isn’t supposed to interfere with the runes, but still mentions two other known runes to the group. A rune in the possession of a very evil man in a castle and the Rune of the Beast somewhere North West of where they were.

With the rune released, Fane touches it and absorbs it. Andarian is very upset about this and quickly forces it out of him, which hurts Fane quite a bit. Andarian tells him that the rune belongs to Brock, and it’s up to Brock to decide what to do with it.

He tells them all that he has to continue his hunt for a specific rune and returns them to Brock’s room. Everyone then catches a quick glimpse of some snowy mountains and one specific mountain reaching far past the clouds in the sky. They reappear in the room once more with Andarian gone.

There’s a confrontation between Fane and Mare at this point. After, everyone heads in their own direction. Mare seeks out the nearest library in Uldurag, Fane, Summer, and Golan go to watch the fight with Fane making a quick detour to collect on his bet made on Golan.

Prince Jerrick defeats the Dwarf Prince in a long battle. On his way out of the arena he tells Golan to meet the King with the other victors in 3 days.

Summer and Fane then leave to investigate the order while Golan heads to Uldurag where he spends the next few days training waiting for his meeting with the King.

When Summer and Fane get to the monastery they see it in flames. A quick look around finds only one survivor, Samuel. They drag him from the burning building just before it collapses. After being healed, Samuel then tells them that he saw some black robed men attack and set fire to the building. They killed everyone there, but the leaders left the building just before it happened. They were talking about their underground fighting league where they fight to the death. Apparently they were supposed to have killed Brock so that someone else could have taken control of the arena.

During all this Mare was studying history books looking for any hints as to the runes origin. After reading about some Nature Gods, she then remembers a story her mom told her, but not all of the details. She then decides to seek out a historian who may be of further assistance.

The Festival Approaches

Brock rewards the group with gifts and awards Golan the position in the tournament. He is then given a letter to give to Prince Jerrick who will pass it on to the King. Brock also mentions that he’s seen a robed man following him from a distance and it might be who Fane is looking for. The group then sets out to Uldurag to meet the prince.

When the group gets to Uldurag they see a group of guards chasing someone. The man they are chasing stops easily disposes of the guards from the top of a large stone wall. The party approaches a guard who isn’t helping the others to find out that this man is the Prince and he’s just training with the guards.

Golan then approaches him with the letter to pass to the king which the prince opens ignoring the fact it wasn’t for him. After reading it he is very pleased that he’s one of the fighters that will be participating in the festival with him and challenges Golan. Golan doesn’t put up a fight against the powerful prince.

Golan spends some time here training with the other fighters and learning about the festival. He is given an Ironskin Belt with the Uldurag Insignia on it and a tabard of the city colors along with all the other fighters. He is to march to the arena as a group with the prince. He’s also warned that if he loses he will be exiled from the city and must return the belt. This goes for all of the fighters.

During all of this Fane and Summer are investigating a possible murder plot on Brock. They find a possible lead with a black robed man, Keff, taking bets on the upcoming fights in the festival. Fane also places a bet on Golan.

Later, a group of men try to catch Summer, but Fane and Summer both manage to fend them off. Fane tracks them back to a room in the arena where he threatens their lives if they ever try to catch her again.

Finally, Fane is approached by a man named Jim who would like to introduce him to a man named Jesus. He doesn’t say what it’s about, but tells him he’ll meet him the day after the festival.

Investigating the Lighthouse

Brock lets the fighters of the arena know that this year, just as in the past, he will be able to appoint one fighter to compete at the Festival of Peace for Uldurag. He hasn’t decided on anyone yet, so he’s come up with the idea of a friendly competition to decide. Each group is sent on a separate mission and the first to return successful will have someone entered.

The party’s mission is to go to a lighthouse and investigate the a possible cause of the missing fighters. The party manages to clear all the goblins from the lighthouse and collect ears as proof of their victory. They also find the remains of Ethilis and a few other unknowns in cages who appeared to be eaten by the goblins.

The group hastily returns to the city without any rest to beat the other group back. They manage to arrive a few hours ahead of the other group ensuring someone in the party is entered in the tournament for the festival.